Another great early Atwood novel. First published in 1976, her third novel. This is the first one where she employs what will become a favorite technique. She starts at the end of the story, this time with a great opening line: "I planned my death carefully; unlike my life, which meandered along from one thing to another, despite my feeble attempts to control it." That line perfectly describes the novel. Of course, we learn within the first paragraph that she is not really dead, just faking her death, but the reader is already hooked.
After that beginning, Atwood goes back and fills in all the details, so that the reader learns how and why the narrator has gotten to this point. Later Atwood uses this same technique in several more novels, always to great success.
Highly recommended.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
I'm ashamed to say that I stopped reading this novel in Chapter 8, the second chapter in the second section, about 175 pages in this edition. The reason? boredom.
The boredom was a problem from the start. The characters are not particularly interesting, there's no plot, and the writing is not impressive. Any one of those is usually enough to keep me interested in a literary novel. The novel seems to be an examination of the homosexual lifestyle of the 1980s. So it's a polemical novel, which means it probably has a point, and that point is probably that promiscuous, unprotected sex is hazardous to your mental and physical health. Well, the author was taking too long to make any point to keep me interested.
Which leaves me asking why this novel even got published. Must have been the male homosexual angle.
Standard disclaimer: I'm nobody, why should you listen to my opinion of this book. It won the Man Booker prize in 2004, so the prize committee liked it. Makes me wonder if it wasn't a type of affirmative action award - reward this novel because of some perceived slight for this class of book in the past, regardless of it's real merit.
The boredom was a problem from the start. The characters are not particularly interesting, there's no plot, and the writing is not impressive. Any one of those is usually enough to keep me interested in a literary novel. The novel seems to be an examination of the homosexual lifestyle of the 1980s. So it's a polemical novel, which means it probably has a point, and that point is probably that promiscuous, unprotected sex is hazardous to your mental and physical health. Well, the author was taking too long to make any point to keep me interested.
Which leaves me asking why this novel even got published. Must have been the male homosexual angle.
Standard disclaimer: I'm nobody, why should you listen to my opinion of this book. It won the Man Booker prize in 2004, so the prize committee liked it. Makes me wonder if it wasn't a type of affirmative action award - reward this novel because of some perceived slight for this class of book in the past, regardless of it's real merit.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The Sea by John Banville
The narrator of this novel relives and re-imagines scenes from his childhood and his life with his recently-deceased wife. He has returned to the seaside in an attempt to make sense of what has happened to him.
Banville writes with exquisite prose. There's not much else to propel the reader though, since we get vignettes, imperfectly remembered and confused. Essentially plotless, we don't learn some essential details until almost the end of the novel - so don't give up on it!
I almost Banville hadn't been so stingy with his plot points. The novel would have benefited from an earlier clue about who the landlady really was, for instance. I know it would have kept me reading with more interest to know that something was coming up later that would be more interesting. But the novel won the Booker prize, and has gotten rave reviews, so who am I to criticize?
Highly recommended.
Banville writes with exquisite prose. There's not much else to propel the reader though, since we get vignettes, imperfectly remembered and confused. Essentially plotless, we don't learn some essential details until almost the end of the novel - so don't give up on it!
I almost Banville hadn't been so stingy with his plot points. The novel would have benefited from an earlier clue about who the landlady really was, for instance. I know it would have kept me reading with more interest to know that something was coming up later that would be more interesting. But the novel won the Booker prize, and has gotten rave reviews, so who am I to criticize?
Highly recommended.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood
Atwood's very first published novel, way back in 1969. A little awkward, but her promise is obvious. It has the Atwood style and feel about it, even though it is somewhat stiff.
A woman, about to be married and give up her independence, feels as if she is being consumed. She stops eating. Plenty of symbolism, which seems a little heavy-handed at times, something that Atwood doesn't do in her later novels. It's also very slow to begin.
But if you are one of her fans, like I am, by all means give it a read for some insight into the author's early years.
A woman, about to be married and give up her independence, feels as if she is being consumed. She stops eating. Plenty of symbolism, which seems a little heavy-handed at times, something that Atwood doesn't do in her later novels. It's also very slow to begin.
But if you are one of her fans, like I am, by all means give it a read for some insight into the author's early years.
Monday, June 9, 2008
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
I've read almost all the Atwood novels now, at least everything but the obscure ones, and this is my favorite. Why? The characters and the skill with which Atwood draws them for the reader. There are three women, all with very unique and distinctive characters, who all have their men "stolen" by what has to be one of the most evil villains in literature, the robber bride. I say the men were stolen, but they were duplicitous in their own downfall, of course.
This is not some cerebral, fancy-parlor novel of manners, but down-to-earth and grounded in real sin. Atwood spends considerable time and pages drawing the characters of the three victim-women, and detailing their interaction with the robber bride. I have to confess, after this was over and the denouement about to begin, that I had no idea how the novel would end. Surely there would be no cliche-ridden shoot out!. And I was not disappointed, but very satisfied with the ending that Atwood imagined for the readers.
Highly recommended.
This is not some cerebral, fancy-parlor novel of manners, but down-to-earth and grounded in real sin. Atwood spends considerable time and pages drawing the characters of the three victim-women, and detailing their interaction with the robber bride. I have to confess, after this was over and the denouement about to begin, that I had no idea how the novel would end. Surely there would be no cliche-ridden shoot out!. And I was not disappointed, but very satisfied with the ending that Atwood imagined for the readers.
Highly recommended.